Syria: 'We still feel Syrian,' say Druze of Golan Heights

But factions clash in Majdal Shams, village annexed by Israel

(ANSAmed) - MAJDAL SHAMS, NOVEMBER 28 - Some still root for
Assad. Others support the rebels. The silent majority looks on,
but whatever the future of Syria may hold, the great majority
still dreams of a return to the homeland. They are the Druze of
Majdal Shams, a village in Israeli-annexed territory in the
north-eastern Golan Heights.

Syria lies just a few meters away, beyond an unpaved road and
two metal barriers marking the ceasefire line Israel laid down
in the 1967 Six-Day War and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

For decades, the inhabitants of Majdal Shams have observed
their grain fields, which remained on the other side of the
border. Using megaphones and loudspeakers, they have
communicated with friends and relatives on the other side of
what the people call the 'vale of screams' or the 'vale of
tears'. But today, the Syrian civil war has come dangerously
close, and the ceasefire line is no longer as silent as it was
during the first year of the anti-Assad uprising.

''For two months now, we've been hearing constant gunfire,
explosions. The landscape up ahead looks just like it always
does, bucolic and peaceful. But behind those hills, it's hell on
earth,'' activist Salman Fakr Deen, who fights for the human
rights of the Golan Heights Druze, explains to ANSAmed. ''The
other night there was an explosion so big it shattered some of
the windows in the village.''
Numbering a few thousand, the Druze of Majdal Shams have
proudly held on to their Syrian passports: when Israel annexed
the Golan Heights in 1981, 95% of them refused Israeli
citizenship, and they are still firmly of that opinion, in spite
of the civil war raging at home.

''It is not a question of personal opinion, but one of
international rights and of justice,'' said Deen. ''These
territories belong to Syria. We are Syrian. We feel we are under
occupation here. The Israelis seized our land, our water, and
they make life impossible for us.''
In Ali Yussef Arii's ground-floor home, the TV is tuned to
the national Syrian channel. Arii, many of whose relatives serve
in the Syrian government army, says he is for peace. ''I am not
with Assad and not with the opposition,'' he said. ''But I'm
afraid that by now Assad only thinks about defending his own
sect, the Alawites. I don't think he cares about us, or about
the Christians.''
An offshoot of Islam, the Druze religion has absorbed
elements of Christianity, Judaism, and the far Eastern
religions. Its believers do not hold nationalist ideas, and
generally are loyal to whatever country they happen to live in.

The Druze of Galilee, for example, consider themselves blood
brothers to the Jews, and serve in the Israeli armed forces.

In Majdal Shams, the civil war raging nearby is a daily
reality, along with the stray fire that sometimes hits this side
of the border. In the village square, pro-Assad and pro-rebel
graffiti share the same walls, and in the cafe, political
discussions sometimes degenerate into brawls.

Just a few meters away, Syria is being torn apart, but in the
center of Majdal Shams a statue is still standing. It represents
Sultan Al Atrash, the Druze leader of the 1925 Syrian uprising
against the occupying French: a reminder that ''this is Syrian
land,'' as Deen repeated. (ANSAmed).